Each of the studies we’ll review today involves the processing of emotion. First, Edwards, Booker, Cook, Miao, Gan & King (2025) published “Hope as a Meaningful Emotion: Hope, positive affect, and meaning in life” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:
Six studies (combined N = 2,312) examined the emotion of hope as a unique and robust predictor of meaning in life. In cross-sectional data (Studies 1–2), affective hope predicted greater meaning, controlling for other positive affect, and agency/pathways, in the majority of White U.S. samples. Utilizing a daily diary (Study 3), daily hope predicted daily meaning independent of positive emotions, in a Chinese sample. A five-wave longitudinal design (Study 4) replicated Study 3, demonstrating that hope was the only positive emotion to predict meaning in life in future waves. Finally, two experiments tested whether hopeful feelings would explain the effects of cheerful (vs. sadness) mood inductions (Study 5) or hopeful (vs. hopeless) mood inductions (Study 6) on meaning in life. Although in neither study did manipulations directly affect meaning in life, hopeful feelings showed significant indirect effects explaining the condition effects on meaning in life. The present studies support that feeling hopeful contributes to the sense that life is meaningful, controlling for other positive feelings.
I liked the emphasis on hope as an important correlate of meaning in life. Next, we’ll look at the perception of threat in anxious people. Kim, Hur, Park & Chong (2025) published “Metacognitive Monitoring of Attentional Bias toward Threat in Anxiety” in Emotion. The edited abstract follows:
Are anxious individuals aware that their attention is excessively captured by threat-related stimuli? If so, how accurate is this awareness? Accurate attentional monitoring is crucial for effective attentional control, as it enables individuals to recognize whether and to what extent attentional control is necessary. The present study investigates how accurately individuals (recruited in 2023–2024) monitor their attentional bias toward an angry face and whether this ability is associated with anxiety levels. Adopting a novel approach that involves average facial expression and attentional allocation judgments, we demonstrate that individuals can monitor their attentional bias toward an angry face. However, anxious individuals tend to underestimate their greater attentional bias, despite having an intact ability to monitor trial-by-trial variations in attentional bias; this may explain why they exhibit impaired attentional control. This study provides a novel theoretical framework that incorporates attentional monitoring processes to more comprehensively understand the relationship between attention and anxiety.
I found it interesting that anxious people have an attentional bias toward processing anger and threat, but underestimate this bias. Finally, Armstrong, Parker & Ortner (2025) published “Emotions and Climate Change: The role of emotion regulation in climate action” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:
Although there is strong evidence for the role of emotion in climate change–mitigating behaviors (Brosch, 2021), little is known about the role of emotion regulation in climate action (Panno et al., 2015). Our studies (a correlational study and an experiment, conducted in 2022) investigated the role of emotion regulation in emotional responses to climate change and the likelihood of taking climate change–mitigating actions. In Study 1, 151 participants from the United States and Canada read about the detrimental effects of climate change before recording their emotional responses, emotion regulation strategies used in response to climate change information, and climate actions (proenvironmental behaviors and civic engagement in environmental actions). Some emotion regulation strategies predicted climate action, including when controlling for demographic variables. In Study 2, 245 participants from the United States watched a video on the negative consequences of climate change, rated their emotions, and were randomly assigned to distraction, worrying, or positive reappraisal in response to the video. Next, they were given the option to sign an environmental petition and donate money to an environmental organization before rating their intentions to engage in climate actions. Distraction reduced negative emotion, and positive reappraisal increased hope. The effects of emotion regulation on engagement in climate action were mixed. Exploratory mediation analyses indicated that worrying and reappraisal increased intentions to engage in climate action via negative emotion. Further experimental research on the effects of emotion regulation on climate action will be important for informing communications about climate change to protect mental health while motivating action.
In this case, we see that climate change action was more likely when people reported worrying and reappraisal. Each of these studies focuses on ways in which processing emotion matters – to hope, to anxiety, and to climate change activism.